Hi

Welcome back Hangdawg13. You were here before my time.

I usually don't comment on these quasi-philosophical threads because I usually have no clue what the point is and they never seem to get to the point. I have read this thread, first because of your announcement of discarding Christianity, partly giving credit to EvC, and then to understand your current philosophy life, I don't think I understand it at all.

It seems like you are saying that "if a tree falls in the forest and if no one was there to hear it, there was no sound," and therefore the past is fluid or maybe doesn't even exist, with some "last Thursdayism" thrown in.

Suppose your filter is the scientific method. To discover anything with the scientific method, the thing you discover must reliably repeat.

That's not how my friends and I use the scientific method. Recording observations so they can be analyzed is a fundamental step in the scientific method in 2022 and has been for several centuries.

Another step in the scientific method is reporting your observations and all the details about how they were obtained, then the people who read about your discovery can analyze your results. This is one of the repeatability parts of science!

A mechanism reliably repeats. So through the lens of science, the universe is a mechanism.

As an analogy, this doesn't make any sense to me. How is the Universe repeating? And what exactly is the lens of science seeing that makes you think the Universe is a mechanism? Are you using "mechanism" to mean something designed? I see "mechanism" used to describe all sorts of features at the molecular level in living cells as well as observations in astrophysics. It seems like an odd way to describe the Universe, to me.

This leads to a few issues and leads some materialistic scientists to make the nonsensical statements like, "consciousness is an illusion."

You may not realize this, but materialistic scientists is not a recognized branch of science anywhere except the minds of non-scientists.

I suppose there must have been some scientists that said that or something similar, but is that all they had to say on the subject of consciousness?

I would expect a scientist who said something like that to explain what they mean, because the whole consciousness experience is under intense study and has been for centuries. We have learned a lot about consciousness and we will continue to learn a lot.

Philosophers think and talk about consciousness quite a lot, but I have not seen any consensus or useful discoveries about consciousness based on philosophy.

And more philosophical issues: 1) "Hard Problem" of consciousness and defining the observer.

This seems like the "if a tree falls in the forest" philosophical question. All we have to do is look to see the tree laying on the ground to know it has fallen.

One of the things I love about astronomy and astrophysics is, that we get to watch cosmic events like supernovae occur in the past. We are directly observing events in the past , as they are occurring. Those observations can be analyzed over and over in many different ways, and we learn all sorts of new things about chemical and physical properties surrounding these past events. They occurred whether we were watching or not and we can still look at events that we missed part of, and infer from other observations, what happened before we started looking.

Does this explain the whole Universe? Of course not, but along with millions of other observations pictures start to emerge. We are living in the golden age of observation of the Universe beyond the earth, and life and everything else about the earth. We are learning more and more every single minute and that is what makes our personal existence meaningful, for some of us. I am hoping to live long enough to see more data collected on a bunch of the mysteries I am interested in.

2) Qualia

I have no idea what that means.

3) Choice, real or illusion?

I feel like I make choices. It feels like the Universe is reality and if it's an illusion, it still seems like reality. Why waste time worrying about it?

4) Novelty: can anything new happen? If this is a "block universe" why is it not already calculated and compressed? Why is this particular moment being "read"? and who is reading?

Well, I don't know what you are asking for here, do you mean can the physical processes of the Universe suddenly work differently or can a comet break apart and smash into Jupiter?

I don't know what a "block universe" is or what you mean by "calculated and compressed."

This particular moment is being read by me because I'm curious.

5) Generally being an arrogant closed-minded dick.

He always seemed like an open minded skeptic to me.

The scientific method is obviously a useful filter, but if NOVELTY is a real thing... if the universe is evolving into something truly NEW, then the scientific method will filter out that aspect of the universe.

I'm not sure what you're saying here, but if you are implying that scientists or science will ignore evidence of fundamental changes to the Universe then you are BSing us, because when even the smallest hint of something NEW shows up, we science the shit out of it!

You seem to think it's a flaw in our methodology that we don't science the shit out of it before it's discovered.

And right there, power enters the picture. The ultimate goal of knowledge is power or potential power.

Knowledge for me is the joy of learning new things, it enriches my life.

Life is an open game and we aren't told the rules... we have to figure them out as we go, so where should we spend our resources and spend our limited time and energy? Some of that depends on your map of the meta-game.

I was told the rules, that was part of formal and informal education. That is the point of education, so we don't have to spend all our resources to figure out everything that has already been discovered.

I don't what you mean by "meta-game." but you seem to be saying in this thread that your imaginary stuff in your mind is the best imaginary stuff and that it's obviously the best imaginary stuff, based on your detailed research of imaginary stuff.

The thing is, I can't even imagine, in my mind, the imaginary stuff in your mind.

There is also a great deal of stress and anxiety caused by encountering things that aren't on your map. This is what ultimately led me away from Christianity... my Christian map of reality didn't match up with reality in some significant ways, so I explored other sources and data points.

I was lucky. I discarded Christianity just a few years after I figured out the Santa Claus fantasy, for exactly the same reasons. I remember being perplexed that adults, grownups, would intentionally believe obvious bullshit. I still haven't seen any data points that reveal a reality based on imaginary sources.

I used to live in the country and we had a lot of dogs. Some dogs would lazily lie on the porch all day. But one dog would run along the fence and bark at every goddamned thing in the woods. She wore a path along her boundary between the known (yard) and the obscure unknown beyond. I'm more like that dog.

I would jump over the fence and go explore the obscure unknown beyond, then I would come back and tear the fence down and tell everyone what I had seen and then take them out and show them.

Edited by Tanypteryx, : spelling

You might be reading too much into what he said.

That is probable, but I think he is generalizing and also mischaracterizing scientists as supporting some philosopher's BS ideas about science.

I thought, perhaps erroneously, that I would point out what I see as some flaws in the basis for his claims about science and scientists.

You are truly God's doG.

I don't know what that means.

Well, there are no deadlines or expectations here.

Good luck!

Edited by Tanypteryx, : No reason given.

Repeatability, however, is still necessary.

The whole event doesn't necessarily have to be repeated. For example, we can study the radioactive decay of specific isotopes into other specific isotopes in the laboratory and in the aftermath of distant supernovae. Thus we can analyze supernovae piece by piece, repeatability.

Edited by Tanypteryx, : No reason given.

Sorry I was unclear.

I was the unclear one. I should have said in addition to what you said.